AV1ENUS -AXIOM. 



359 



18, and began to practise as a physician. He soon 

 acquired a degree of reputation which reached the 

 ears of the various Eastern princes, all of whom were 

 desirous of retaining him in their service ; but he 

 finally went into that of the sultan Nedjmeddevle, 

 who appointed him his physician and grand vizier. 

 His unduelove of pleasure, however, soon made him 

 lose his post and his master's favour; and the re- 

 mainder of his life was spent in great adversity, as 

 he was charged with the crime of heresy, in addition 

 to other accusations. He died at Hamadan, in ab- 

 ject circumstances, A. D. 1036, aged 58. A. left 

 many writings, mostly commentaries on Aristotle. 

 They consist of twenty books on the Utility of the 

 Sciences ; the Heads of Logic ; and various pieces 

 in metaphysics and morals. Of his medical works, 

 the principal is called Canon Medicinee which is 

 thought very lightly of by Haller and Fraud. His 

 works were printed in the original Arabic, at Ron~e, 

 in 1497, more than one Latin version of which has 

 been translated, the latest being that of Vopucius 

 Fortunatus, (Louvain, 1651). 



AVIENUS, Rufus Festus ; a Latin poet of the fourth 

 century. The works attributed to him are, Latin 

 versions of the Phenomena of Aratus, and Periegesis 

 of Dionysius, &c. Some of these productions still 

 remain, and show him to have been a tolerable ver- 

 sifier. The best edition of his works is that of 

 Cannegetier, 1731. Very little is known of his his- 

 tory. 



AVIGNON, chief city of the department of Vaucluse, 

 in the south-eastern part of France, on the Rhone, 

 with narrow and crooked streets, contains a great 

 number of churches and sacred buildings, among 

 which is the church of the Franciscans; several 

 scientific institutions, and among them an athenaeum 

 and a medical library ; 2800 houses, and 24,000 in- 

 liabitants ; respectable silk manufactories, silk-dyeing 

 establishments, and other works. The country is 

 agreeable, and extremely fruitful in corn, wine, 

 olives, the Avignon berry (of a yellow colour), ker- 

 mes, sumach, and the richest fruits of the south. 

 Here Petrarch lived several years : here he saw his 

 Laura, who formed the. subject of his most beautiful 

 verses, and whose tomb is still to be found in the 

 Franciscan church. The fountain of Vaucluse is 

 five leagues from A. This city and its district, in 

 the middle ages, was a county which the popes, who 

 had already received the county of Venaissin, in 

 1273, from king Philip the Bold, as a present, bought 

 of Joanna, queen of Sicily and countess of Provence, 

 in 1348, for 80,000 florins. Joanna had fled to Pro- 

 vence because Louis I., king of Hungary, wished to 

 take revenge on her for the death of his brother, her 

 husband, whom she had caused to be murdered. The 

 papal government retained the two provinces, under 

 the rule of a vice-legate, till 1790, when, after many 

 stormy scenes, the city, with its district, was annexed 

 to the French republic, and, in 1791, was formally 

 united with it. At the peace of Tolentino, the pope 

 renounced A. and Venaissin. Louis XIV. and Louis 

 XV. several times took possession of A., when of- 

 fended with the popes. From 1305 to 1.S77, seven 

 popes in succession fixed their residence in this city. 

 The Catholic historians commonly call this period 

 the Babylonish captivity of the popes. Near A. are 

 found many Roman antiquities. 



AVOIRDUPOIS (French, avoir du pots) ; a kind of 

 weight, of which a pound contains 16 ounces, and is 

 in proportion to a pound troy as 17 to 14. All the 

 larger and coarser commodities are weighed by avoir- 

 dupois weight. The avoirdupois ounce is less than 

 the troy ounce in the proportion of 72 to 79 ; though 

 the pound, as we have said, is greater. See Mca- 



AVON ; the name of several rivers in England, the 

 most important of which are the following four. 1. 

 Rising in Leicestershire, runs S. W., and falls into 

 the Severn at Tewksbury. Stratford-on-Avon, a 

 town on this river, is the birth-place of Shakspeare. 

 2. In Monmouthshire. 3. In Wiltshire, enters the 

 English channel at Christ-church bay, in Hampshire. 

 4. The Lower Avon, which rises near Tetbury, in 

 Gloucestershire, and falls into the Severn N. W. of 

 Bristol, being navigable as far as Bath. 



AWARD. See Arbitration. 



A-WEIGH ; the state of the anchor when it is drawn 

 out of the ground in a perpendicular direction. 



AXEL. See Absalom. 



AXIM ; a part of the fertile territory of Ahanta, on 

 the Gold Coast. The Dutch have a fort here, called 

 fort Anthony, situated on the most western promon- 

 tory of cape Three Points. The Portuguese founded 

 the first settlement here, but were driven from it by 

 the Dutch, in \G42.-Axim is likewise the name of 

 a river which runs through the capital of this coun- 

 try, called, also, Axim. 



AXINITE ; a crystallized substance, found principally 

 in Dauphiny, in France, and latterly in Cornwall, in 

 the neighbourhood of St Just. The colours are ge- 

 nerally a light violet-brown. Its name is derived 

 from the general form of the crystals, the edges of 

 which bear some resemblance to the edge of an axe. 



AXIOM (principle) ; a universal proposition, which 

 the understanding must perceive to be true as soon 

 as it perceives the meaning of the words, though it 

 cannot be proved, because it is impossible to make it 

 plainer. It is therefore called a self-evident truth. 

 To these propositions belong, indisputably, those in 

 which the subject and predicate are either the same 

 or are only expressed in different words, since we 

 cannot think a thing is really different from itself: 

 for instance, A is A ; Every quantity is like itself ; A 

 thing is like itself; A thing cannot, at the same time, 

 be and not be ; &c. To axioms belong also proposi- 

 tions, of which the predicate expresses only some 

 idea which enters necessarily into our conception of 

 the subject. Such is the proposition, A triangle has 

 three sides, because the subject, triangle, cannot be 

 conceived otherwise than three-sided. All reasoning 

 must start trom axioms. There has been much dis- 

 pute what proposition is to be regarded as absolutely 

 first in all human knowledge. Some have considered 

 as such the position, It is impossible for a thing to be 

 and not to be at the same time ; others, Whatever is, 

 is ; others, Every thing either is or is not ; others, 

 the principle of the sufficient reason, IVe cannot re- 

 gard any thing as true without proofs, or any thing 

 false against established proofs. All these positions 

 are fundamental truths. They all have this in com- 

 mon, that we cannot help regulating our thoughts, 

 in the judgment of truth, conformably to them. They 

 are all necessarily believed to be true. Many princi- 

 ples, however, are esteemed, by one class of men, self- 

 evident, whicli another will not admit. There can 

 never, therefore, exist perfect uniformity in human rea- 

 soning. There is only one science, which starts from 

 axioms acknowledged by all mankind, and which, 

 therefore, is of a more general character than any 

 other viz. mathematics. But about some principles 

 of every other science, whicli are generally considered 

 axioms, great doubts have existed. Thus it is re- 

 garded as an axiom of moral philosophy, that There 

 exists a distinction, in the nature of things, between 

 moral good and evil. This cannot be proved, but it 

 is generally admitted ; and all our social, political, and 

 religious relations are regulated by this principle ; 

 yet there have existed men of acute minds, who have 

 disavowed this axiom altogether, and made interest 

 the sole rule of conduct. Many of them lived in the 



